Days of Winter
by pickalily
Summary: A series of holiday ficlets involving everyone's favorite grump and ginger-haired ball of sunshine.
1. Things Planned and Unplanned

_A/N: A series of fics inspired by prompts from_ _alloftheprompts tumblr com/post/134349883493/25-days-christmas-romance-challenge though I probably won't be doing all of them this year because, well, I already missed my chance after I didn't finish this the first day. Oops. I'll probably finish the ones I didn't do next year though._

 _Here's a modern office/workplace AU. Don't ask me where they work though. I have no idea._

* * *

"Someone's still angry," a voice sang annoyingly. Petra normally wouldn't describe anything as annoying even in her head, but her patience had run out and she found that everything was getting on her nerves as of late. Her coworker Hanji Zoe perched gleefully on the arm of Petra's chair, something that their coworker Moblit, who worked a couple of cubicles over, had repeatedly told Hanji not to do because she had fallen off way too many times.

Petra huffed and tucked a lock of ginger hair behind her ear. "I'm not mad," she insisted, trying and failing to reply in a calm manner. "It's just that I don't understand why I couldn't be paired up with someone so grumpy to plan for a cheery holiday party. Do you think he even knows how to smile?" It really was just her luck to be stuck with the grumpiest guy in the office to plan out the annual surprise Christmas party for their boss Erwin Smith (who probably caught on by now so it was more of just an ordinary holiday party than a surprise party).

Hanji let out a snicker – more of a cackle really, all of her laughs seemed to echo throughout the office – and put her arm around her friend's shoulder. "Levi's face is just like that, I swear. I bet he came out of his mom's womb with that face."

Petra tried to imagine a baby Levi, smiling and happy as all babies were supposed to be, but all she could see was the short, raven-haired man with stormy gray eyes and a perpetual frown plastered on his face. "Can't you just switch with me?" Petra pleaded. "I'm sure no one really cares whether or not I work on the decorations committee or the alcoholic bar."

"Nope!" Hanji said cheerfully, slapping Petra on the back a little too hard. "Sorry, but Moblit's working with me on the bar and that man knows his drinks. Makes my job easy!"

Petra groaned, slumping over her desk. "But you're the only one in this office that actually _likes_ him!"

The spectacled woman blinked at her companion. "Why don't _you_ like him, Petra?" she asked. "You like everyone!"

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe if he were less of a pompous ass I'd like him better," Petra said, shrugging.

Hanji raised her eyebrows. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Remember that one time when Auruo was giving a presentation on another marketing strategy for the next product we were going to put up last September?" Petra said, sitting up a bit and tapping her fingers on her desk. "And Levi interrupted him right in the middle of what he was saying and told him that his idea was 'absolute shit'?" She made little air quotes around the last few words and scowled.

Hanji smiled and waved her hand as if dismissing this very important character-defining event. "Levi just hates social media in general. He's an old man that way. But didn't you even think that the twitter hashtag was a little ridiculous?" Hanji smirked.

Petra huffed. "So Auruo isn't the best with making up snazzy hashtags, so what? That didn't give Mr. Frowns-a-Lot a right to humiliate him in front of everyone! Auruo looks up to him a lot too. He won't even walk past Levi's office without me if he has to."

Hanji scratched the back of her head and laughed. "Yeah, he was a little harsh, wasn't he?"

"A little? He crushed poor Auruo's soul!" Petra exclaimed. She sat back in her seat, folding her arms against her chest. "Does he think that just because he's Erwin's right-hand man he gets to treat everyone else like trash? He always acts likes he's better than everyone. He has that weird habit of just referring to people by their last name. And why is he always frowning? He always looks like he'd rather be somewhere else." Petra scrunched up her nose in distaste. God, she hated this guy.

"I'm serious! It's just his face!" Hanji insisted, bursting into laughter once more. A few heads turned in their direction but, seeing that it was Hanji, returned back to work immediately.

Petra's phone rang, a loud, ominous tone, and Petra frowned, looking at her phone as if she wished it would explode. "Ugh, it's him." She picked up her phone gingerly, grimacing at the name across the screen: Devil's spawn.

Hanji raised an eyebrow. "Already? We only got assigned to our tasks yesterday."

Petra stood up, tossing her things carelessly in her bag. "He wants to get this done as fast as possible," she explained, rolling her eyes to let her friend know that she thought he was being ridiculous. "He probably wants to get this out of the way so he never has to speak to me again."

"Have fun!" Hanji crowed, widely waving and grinning mischievously as Petra walked away.

…

They sat there awkwardly in his office for a long while after Petra had arrived. She noticed how spotless it was. All of the papers on his desk were neatly stacked together in organized piles and his pens and highlighters were placed neatly in his sectioned penholder – organized by color, of course. She was kind of afraid of touching anything. Petra perched nervously at the edge of the seat.

"So," Levi spoke slowly, "do you have any ideas, Ral?"

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. Calling people by their last names probably allowed him to distance himself from all of the workers who weren't the star employee. "Well, it's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory themed. We could fill vases with M&Ms and put cakepops inside for centerpieces instead of the classic flowers, right?" She glanced at him to observe his reaction.

He shrugged and fiddled around with a pen, clicking it idly. "I guess."

Petra pursed her lips. She probably shouldn't have expected a helpful response from the world's biggest jerk. She leaned forward slightly, brushing a lock of hair away from her face. "Maybe we should decorate the trees with chocolates. I saw some shaped like reindeer the other day when I was going shopping. Those could be cute and people can eat them at the party if they want."

Levi snorted. "Sounds like you're just trying to give everyone at the party a heart attack." Nevertheless, he wrote it down on the notepad he had in front of him. His printing was as neat and tidy as the rest of his office, Petra observed. They might as well just make his handwriting a font.

She huffed. "Okay, what are your ideas then, Levi?" Sure, saying his last name probably would have been more menacing but she didn't want to be anything like him so she stuck to calling him by his first name and putting as much malice as she could into it.

He blinked, somewhat surprised at her angry tone, but he didn't say anything about her uncharacteristic scowling. Instead he looked out of his window, still clicking his pen. "I'm not much of a holiday person," he muttered.

She fought the urge to say, _Gee, really? I never would have guessed._ "Maybe I should just plan it out myself. Then we can get this out of our hair as soon as possible," she said, already packing up her things. It's not like Levi would object to her suggestion. Really, it was the best option for both of them. She wouldn't have to work with a huge snob and he wouldn't have to interact with a living, breathing person. They would both get what they wanted.

As Petra began to open the door, not even bothering to say goodbye to Levi, she heard him speak. "Is it because you think I'm a pompous ass?"

She stood there, foot halfway through the door and her jaw agape, and froze in place. She must have imagined him saying that. There was no way he knew that she had said that about him. Unless…

The door banged shut. She stomped up to his desk, horrified at the amused smirk on his face, and slammed her hands on his desk. "Did Hanji tell you I said that?" she hissed.

He leaned back in his chair. His expression had reverted back to its normal indifferent state, yet Petra could see a small upward twitch at the right corner of his mouth. "You shouldn't really tell that Four-eyes anything if you can help it. She has a tendency to talk a lot." Levi pulled his phone, flipping through it quickly. "She also texted me last week to say that you were complaining about me being a 'self righteous bastard.'" He looked at her, eyebrows raised. He didn't look the least bit angry, just slightly entertained. Petra thought she would rather he be angry. At least he wouldn't have that stupid smug look on his face.

She felt her cheeks flush red in embarrassment. "So she's been giving you updates on how much I absolutely hate you," Petra said slowly, "and you haven't spoken to Erwin about it at all? Didn't you want me fired after you heard me say those awful things to you?"

He shrugged again, shoving his phone back into his pocket.

"What's wrong with you?" she spluttered. Petra realized that raising her voice to a superior would most likely get her fired (and she was pretty lucky that Levi hadn't fired her before because of her previous comments) but she couldn't help it. He was infuriating and it was making it hard for her to think clearly. She leaned in closer, narrowing her amber eyes at him. "Name one reason you wouldn't want me fired." She was sure of that. Levi had little to no knowledge of her. She had only had contact with him during meetings and he was usually sitting at one end of he table looking bored. There wasn't any reason for him to feel like she was an essential member of the company.

He rested his elbows on his desk, leaning forward with his fingers steepled in front of his face. "I wouldn't say that. You're the only one in the office who doesn't make shitty coffee."

If Petra was asked to make a list of unbelievable people right then and there, Levi would definitely take the number one spot. "Out of everything I have to offer," she said through gritted teeth, "the only one of them that prevented me from getting fired was my ability to make you a caffeinated beverage every morning?"

"You said one reason," he replied, getting up from his chair and slipping on his blazer. He glanced at Petra, who was still staring at him with her mouth agape. "I have a meeting with Erwin, Ral, so I'm going to have to ask you to leave. We should probably regroup for this stupid decoration committee thing."

"You actually want to discuss this with me?" She had no idea Levi Ackerman was this full of surprises.

He sighed. "I don't want to do this." He gestured around the room with his hand. Petra wondered if "this" meant planning the holiday party or just work in general. "But I'd rather you not do everything by yourself. I'm an asshole, but I'm not that big of an asshole." He smirked.

She felt cheeks flush and she tugged at a lock of her hair at the side of her face. "Oh," she squeaked.

Levi walked over to the door, holding it open and looking at her expectantly. "Meet me tomorrow in my office during our lunch break and we'll talk about that candy idea or something. I swear Hanji just proposed that chocolate factory theme so she could take home as much sugar as possible," he said, wrinkling his nose.

"Ah, okay," she said. Another thing she hadn't expected: Levi casually making jokes with her. She didn't even know he was capable of having a sense of humor that didn't involve murder or something equally dark and scary. "Tomorrow during lunch break?"

"Unless you'd rather not," he replied. She had to quicken her pace. For a short man he had a rather quick gait. He fidgeted with his tie and looked at her through the corner of his eye. "I know I'm an asshole."

"Not that big of an asshole," she said quickly. "I mean, you didn't get me fired and you're not shoving all of the party planning on me so you can't be that bad."

"Still an asshole but not that big of an asshole. I guess that's kind of reassuring. I'll see you tomorrow then." They approached the door of the conference room and Levi rested his hand on the knob. He turned to look at Petra. "And, Ral, you're do pretty decent work."

Before she could ask him to elaborate he had disappeared into the meeting. As she walked back to her cubicle she rethought her opinion of Levi Ackerman. So he was blunt and had a horrific scowling face that served as his default expression, but he was also nice enough not to rat out her less than stellar behavior to Erwin Smith. And, from what she could tell about his pitiful attempts at complimenting her for making coffee that wasn't shitty and doing "pretty decent work," he wasn't a dick. He just sucked at talking in general. Maybe she should give him a second chance. After all, he didn't look half bad, she thought as she bit her lip.

When Hanji texted her later that day asking how the planning went, Petra texted her back with a message saying, "Not bad." She rolled her eyes at the winking emoji her friend sent her in reply not half a minute later.

…

Moblit observed the two people walking to the elevator. They were chatting about something, the ginger woman gesturing with her hands while the man with the dark hair cut in an undercut nodded every once in a while to indicate that he was listening.

"They're so cute," a voice breathed next to his ear.

He turned his head quickly to find Hanji next to him, looking in the direction of their coworkers. "Hanji, what the fuck?" he spluttered. "I told you to quit doing that! You scared the crap out of me."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Moblit, what do you think of Ral and Ackerman?" she asked, ignoring his scolding as she always did.

He scratched the back of his head. "Uh, they're working on décor for the Christmas party, right?" he asked. "Although, they've been working on it quite a while. They've been eating lunch together every day for the past week. Does it really take that long to decide what to buy for the party?"

Hanji's grin grew even wider. "I highly doubt they're discussing décor." She wrapped her arm around Moblit's shoulders. "Nope. My dear friend, what you have witnessed is the budding relationship between two of the most adorable people on the planet." She gazed up at the ceiling lights, waving her other hand in the air as if the accentuate the importance of this event.

"Wait, are they dating?" Moblit asked in a hushed whisper.

"All in due time, Moblit!" Hanji chirped happily. "And it's all thanks to me rigging that random partner drawing for the Christmas party!"

Moblit nodded then looked at Hanji. "Wait, you rigged it?" he said, eyebrows raised. He didn't know why he was so surprised. It was the sort of devious act that was so characteristic of his crazed coworker.

"Yup!" she said proudly, hands on hips and chest puffed out.

"Wait, so…" Moblit put two and two together in his head. He narrowed his eyes at the happy brunette perched on the edge of his desk. "Did you also rig it so that I'd end up as your partner?"

Hanji smiled sheepishly. "I'll buy you a bottle of your favorite vodka if you don't tell anyone about it," she offered.

Moblit sighed. Then again, he did like his alcohol. "Fine, fine," he sighed. Anyway, he couldn't really blame Hanji for rigging it. Petra and Levi did look like they'd make a cute couple.

* * *

 _A/N: Mischievous Hanji is my favorite. Poor Moblit though._


	2. Spoiled

_A/N: Regarding a question from the last chapter, I've planned this as a collection of one-shots. They are in no way related to each other unless otherwise stated._

 _Thank you for all of the favorites and follows! I'd also like to thank Julius Night, Stavroula G, and everyone else for their reviews. They were very sweet and encouraging! Please enjoy this next chapter! It's another modern AU. I seem to like those a lot._

* * *

The smell of warm coffee wafted into the room and Levi heard the soft noise of heels on carpet. He looked up to see Petra, the rookie journalist, with a steaming mug of coffee in each of her hands.

She smiled when he looked at her and extended a mug out to him. "Coffee, Levi?" Despite being the newest member of the company, Petra had already familiarized with all of her coworkers. She greeted everyone in the morning and probably knew how everyone liked their coffee. She knew how Levi liked his coffee anyway. It was a bit surprising how she had warmed up to him so quickly, becoming his closest coworker in just a few short months. The early morning coffee certainly helped, but she also radiated inexplicable warmth and understanding, able to accept his characteristic grumpiness and soon the daily morning greeting just became early morning coffee right before everyone else arrived at the office. They had even grabbed lunch together a couple of times. He wondered why Petra chose to hang out with him out of everyone else in the office. Then again, he couldn't really complain since he really did enjoy her company.

"Thank you, Petra," he said, accepting the cup and taking a sip. He closed his eyes and allows himself to savor the bitterness of his morning beverage. _Not bad,_ he thought as he set the cup down.

"I'm going to be so happy after we get off from work," Petra sighed, slipping into the chair beside him. She propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin on the palm of her hand. "I don't mind working on Christmas all that much but it's kind of a bummer that I couldn't spend the whole day with my dad."

"We're out in a couple of hours. At least we don't work in the food business. Dealing with whiny people during holiday season seems like a pain in the ass." Levi scanned the article on his screen quickly, searching for any typos. Sure, it would have been polite to actually look at her when she was talking but he found that it was more efficient if he did his work while listening to the other person. Most people were often put off by this kind of behavior, listening without looking, and left him alone but Petra never seemed to mind. She seemed to understand that he wasn't trying to appear disinterested; he just liked to make the most of his time.

"Are you doing anything for Christmas, Levi?" she asked curiously. She was playing with her hair now, a sunset gold lock of hair curling around her hair.

"No," he replied, finally looking up from his laptop screen. "I'm not much of a Christmas person. It's just a normal day for me."

Her mouth formed a perfect "o" and her amber eyes widened in surprise. Levi always thought it was amusing how genuine all of her emotions were and how clearly she displayed them. "You're really not doing anything on the most magical night of the year?" she asked incredulously.

Levi shrugged. "It's not that magical, Petra," he said, tapping his fingers on the table. "You know that reindeer don't fly and that Santa Claus isn't real, right?"

She rolled her eyes. "You can't do nothing on Christmas!" she protested. "You're already boring enough!"

He scowled. "Well, today's my birthday so I should be able to do what I want without you telling me how to live my life," he snapped. He hoped this would be able to shut Petra up, at least for a little bit while she wallowed in guilt for making him feel bad on his day of birth even though he normally spent his birthday the way he spent Christmas – doing nothing. However, the ever-growing grin on his friend's face made him deeply regret his decision. "What?"

She only smiled and traced the rim of her cup with her finger, her nails painted in stripes the same red and white as a candy cane. "You didn't tell me it was your birthday today."

"It's not. I lied," he lied. He knew that Petra normally looked happy but this level of happy was creeping him out. Whatever she was thinking, he didn't like it. "Stop thinking about it."

"You know what you should do?" she asked, leaning towards him with her head tilted to the side. She paused for a moment to let him answer but he only glared at her. "You should come to my Christmas party!"

"I'm not going to your Christmas party," he said.

"My friends are going to be there!" she said excitedly, eyes lighting up like a star atop a Christmas tree. She was bouncing a little bit in her seat. Jesus, she was like a little kid opening presents on Christmas morning. "We can celebrate your birthday too! It'll be fun!"

"I told you. I'm not a holiday person," he said curtly.

"It's your birthday, Levi! You need to allow yourself to be spoiled sometimes. I bet the reason why you're so grumpy all of the time is because you're a workaholic who has zero fun all of the time."

He sighed and looked at the woman beside him, her eyes widened in hope. It was probably best not to look at a face like that, he thought, turning away quickly and returning his gaze to his screen. "Maybe doing nothing is my way of celebrating."

"You won't even have to stay for an hour," she told him, not letting up an inch. "Just come and if you hate it you can leave whenever you want. I'll make up some excuse for you so you don't seem rude. Not that I'll have to because you'll be having so much fun you'll never want to leave."

He chanced a glance at her. Gone were the large puppy eyes, thank god, replaced by a confident smile. On second thought he wasn't sure that was much of an improvement. "You're not going to leave me alone until I say yes, are you?" he asked flatly.

"Nope!" she chirped.

"Fine, I'll go," he replied, rolling his eyes.

"Hurray!" Petra cheered, leaping out of her chair and raising her arms in victory. "You, sir, are finally going to know the true meaning of Christmas. Meet me after work, okay? We're going to get you spoiled and maybe you won't be so grouchy all of the time, Mister Grinch." She grabbed her mug and was almost skipping out of the room, not even staying behind to listen to Levi's reply.

He watched as she vanished from sight, fighting the small smile that was creeping onto his face. "Okay," he said to no one in particular. Levi lifted the mug to his lips and took another sip of his coffee. He doubted this stupid party would change his view on Christmas but, hey, maybe Petra was right and it really was a magical holiday. At any rate it would be interesting with her around.

Three hours later they were in her apartment, Petra clutching two wrapped presents to her chest. They were last minute gifts for Levi even though he had repeatedly told her that he didn't mind being the only person without a present and, if she did want to buy him a gift, one would suffice because most people lumped his birthday and Christmas gifts in one anyway.

"That's cheating," she told him when they were driving to her apartment. She had forced him to stay put in the car while she "went to get something for the party" so he had played Flappy Bird on the phone until she had come back in the car with two gift wrapped packages neatly labeled "Levi Ackerman" in her arms. (When he had asked her what one was she shook a box playfully in front of him telling him it was a new heart to make up for the shriveled up one that was currently residing in his chest.) "You can't just give someone one present and say 'Hey, here's your Christmas _and_ birthday present. It's weird if you did that to someone with a summer birthday so it's weird if you do it for someone with a December birthday. Everyone should get at least two presents every year, one for their birthday and one for Christmas. It should be a law or something." She deposited the gifts to the gigantic pile of presents underneath her tree, a little green pine tree that was a little shorter than her, probably five feet tall. It was bedecked with tinsel, several mismatched ornaments, and lights with a brilliant gold star sparkling on top of it.

"It's not that bad," Levi said, shrugging.

Petra rolled her eyes and brushed the pine needles off of her jeans. Of course she'd buy an actual pine tree for Christmas. "Seriously, Levi? You've been deprived your whole life. Spoil yourself." She glanced at the clock on her wall and frowned. "I'm an hour behind schedule."

"You wouldn't be behind schedule if you hadn't gone out and bought me those presents," Levi pointed out. He ignored Petra's scowl. "Do you want any help with anything? Since it's my fault anyway."

She let out a tinkling laugh and waved her hand. "You didn't even want to be here, stupid. But since you offered, do you mind putting up a few more decorations for me while I make the Yule log cake? I left a box of stuff somewhere behind the tree." Petra was already heading to the kitchen, tying an apron around her waist.

"You seriously think this place needs more holiday décor? It already looks like Father Christmas vomited snowflakes and reindeer over your apartment," Levi commented dryly. Nevertheless, he went to find the box of decorations right where she said it was. He had barely touched it when the box nearly exploded with snowflake-covered curtains, snowmen figurines, and other wintry paraphernalia. He turned a snow globe around in his hands, watching the fake snow swirl round and round. "Seriously?"

A whisk popped out of the door, wagging at him in what he assumed to be a menacing way. "You offered to help! Don't just sit there gawking at Christmas stuff!" Petra scolded.

"Huh." He frowned looked around the room. It couldn't be that hard to stick all of that holiday stuff everywhere, right?

He spent the next two hours placing everything where he thought it should be, occasionally making snarky remarks about the how freakishly festive some of these decorations were. (Levi didn't use all of the decorations. He'd left a Santa figure in the box because he looked more like a mischievous, overfed elf and his painted on grin freaked Levi out.) He'd even taken liberty with her apartment and cleaned up a bit. Not that Petra was filthy or anything, she was pretty decent with keeping her stuff organized. She just needed to get into hard to reach places to make sure all of that dust wouldn't collect there. Maybe he'd buy her a really good feather duster next Christmas or something.

"Oi, Petra." Levi pushed the door to the kitchen opened and was welcomed by the smell of cocoa, sweet and heavy. He looked at his friend who was kneeling at the oven, peering in to watch the cake bake.

"What's up?" she asked, turning her head to look at him.

"What the fuck is this?" He walked over to her and dangled a small bundle of vibrant green leaves and white berries in her face. They were tied together with a simple red ribbon.

"Oh!" She stood up, brushing herself off a bit, and took the leaves from Levi to cup them in her hands. She smiled down at them fondly, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "It's mistletoe!" Petra looked at him, a playful smile on her lips. "Do you seriously not know what this is?"

"Tch, I know what they are," Levi responded. "I just didn't think you'd have something this ridiculous in that stupid box of yours."

She stuck her tongue out at him and handed the mistletoe back to him. "Sure, whatever."

"Where should I put this?"

Petra wrinkled her nose at it. "You can just put that back. It was a stupid thing my friend Auruo left at my house the last time I hosted a party."

Levi lifted it up, dangling it between them so it hung just slightly above their heads. "Are you sure? I think I can find a pretty good place for this," he said.

"Out of all of my 'weird' Christmas decorations and you're attached to my mistletoe? You just said it was ridiculous two seconds ago," laughed Petra. There was that tinkling laugh again. Like bells, he thought.

"No, really," he insisted. He twirled the mistletoe between his fingers a bit. "It looks nice here, doesn't it?"

They locked eyes and a look of understanding came across Petra's face. She suppressed a smile, but he could tell by the light in her eyes that she was amused. "Is this your oh-so subtle way of telling me you want to kiss me?" she asked.

"You did say I should spoil myself a little," he replied. "After all, it's birthday _and_ my birthday."

She rolled her eyes. "You're such a dork, Levi." But she pulled him towards her, grabbing the front of his shirt with both hands, and pressed her lips against his.

He let his eyelids fall shut, drinking everything about Petra in. His free hand trailed down her spine, following the curve of her back, before settling on the small of her back. He drew her in closer, heard her little intake of breath as he did so. Her lips were so soft against his. He could taste a slight hint of chocolate like she had taken a little taste of the cake batter beforehand. It was the type of childish thing he would have expected of her. A small hand found its way to the back of his head, fingers threading through his short undercut. Christmas wasn't half bad, he thought, especially if it meant he could kiss Petra.

A short _ping!_ startled them both, and Petra untangled herself from Levi's limbs while muttering a couple of curses underneath her breath, accidentally whacking him in the face with her hair when she turned her head to look at the timer perched on the stove. He rubbed his nose a bit. That kiss ended a bit prematurely, he thought wistfully, but it wasn't bad.

"Seriously though, don't hang that up," Petra said, already pulling on her oven mitts.

"Is that not a good place to put it?" He tilted his head, watching her as she pulled the cake out of the oven. The smell of chocolate grew heavier. He wouldn't be surprised if the smell of chocolate cake filled the whole apartment by the time Petra was done.

"You're going to get too spoiled, Levi," she replied but he could tell that she was biting back a smile.

"I can get used to this whole being spoiled for Christmas-slash-birthday thing," he confessed, pocketing the mistletoe to keep for himself. "I used to think this whole holiday was kind of dumb but you're really convinced me, Ral. It's kind of a Christmas miracle, this conversion. Maybe you were right about Christmas being the most magical day of the year."

"Major dork," she said, leaning against the counter. Her hands were folded across her chest, a smug smile on her chest. "But I did tell you. Christmas is amazing."

He settled down next to her, their sides of their brushing against each other. "How about another kiss then?" he asked, gazing into her warm, amber eyes. He cupped her face in one of his hands, bringing her close enough that their noses were touching.

The corner of her eyes crinkled but she only reached up to pinch his cheeks, stretching his face a little bit. "Getting way too spoiled now, Ackerman," she teased, but still gave him a swift peck on the forehead.

Yeah, maybe he could get used to this whole Christmas thing if it meant he could get spoiled by Petra.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm sort of guilty that I'm not doing the prompts in order but I screwed the order up when I didn't publish the fics on day one. Too late for that now._

 _I should really be studying for physics. Or writing my ten-paged history paper. Or writing my outline for my theology final. But it's kind of cold and I'd rather just imagine Petra and Levi being happy with each other. Much pleasanter to think about._


	3. Secret Santa

A finger prodded him his side and he swatted it away. "Hanji, stop," he hissed.

"It's obvious you're staring," she teased in a singsong voice. His friend wrapped her arm around his shoulders. "You know, you should have just gone with one of my ideas." She winked at him and he scowled.

"It'd probably be better than whatever boring thing you got her," Erwin smirked, tugging on the neatly wrapped bow atop of the present Levi was currently holding in his lap.

Levi wrapped his arms protectively around the gift. "You guys, shut up," he growled. He didn't have one of his usual witty comebacks this time around. He didn't know why he was so nervous. After all, it was only Petra. Petra, who was incredibly kind and sweet and cute, would probably feign happiness even if he had gotten her a rock. For some reason that very fact made it all the more difficult for Levi to pick a present for her. He had been stressing out over picking the perfect gift for her for the past two weeks. True, they had been friends for quite a while but, when thinking up things that Petra absolutely _loved_ , his mind drew a complete blank. It probably would have been better if he had drawn someone else, anyone else, for the Secret Santa. Petra would open his gift and just conclude that her Secret Santa was the worst person ever.

Mike's fingers tapped on the back of couch behind Levi. "You should have just come to the party with a bow stuck to the front of your jeans," the grinning blonde giant snickered.

"No, no!" laughed Hanji, holding her sides. Levi cringed at her loud cackling, praying that Petra wasn't listening in on their conversation from the other room. "Just knocked on the door, wrapped in ribbon, a big ass bow right on your crotch!"

Everyone except Levi howled with laughter and the dark-haired boy glowered. "You guys are the worst friends a guy could ever have," he muttered. He tugged on Hanji's ponytail and glared at her. "And _you_ , you shitty Four Eyes, were supposed to keep my damn Secret Santa person a _secret_ and give me advice on what to give her, not tell everyone else who it was!"

"Ow, ow!" Hanji whined, pulling her hair away from her friend's grasp. She whimpered a bit and put on a wounded face. "Levi, I can't help it. It's too funny seeing you getting all worried about what to get sweet, little Petra for Christmas."

"Especially since we all know you like her." Erwin, damn him, wiggled his well-groomed eyebrows. (Levi would bet anything that Erwin took better care of his stupid eyebrows than anything else.)

Levi huffily got off of the couch, making his way towards the kitchen where Petra and her friends were busy finishing Christmas dinner.

"Ooh, where are you going, Levi?" hooted Hanji, hanging off of the edge of the couch. "Are you going to go tell Petra you love her?"

Mike and Erwin scrambled to the edge of the couch as well, making disgusting kissing noises and being altogether very immature, even for them. Sometimes Levi couldn't understand why he considered them his friends.

"No," he said slowly. "I'm just apologizing for the shitty gift I'm giving her."

"Sure you are." Mike gave Levi an exaggerated wink. The rest of the group burst into giggles.

Levi tucked the gift under his arm, knocking on the door with one hand and using the other hand to flip them off. "Oi, Petra," he called. "Can I talk to you for a second? Ah, alone?" He ignored the annoying chorus of "ooh" from his friends as well as the red that was creeping into his cheeks.

A muffled, "Just a second!" came from the other side of the door. After a short pitter-patter of steps the door opened, revealing a slightly disheveled Petra. The smell of turkey, mashed potatoes, and other traditional holiday meals drifted out from the kitchen. "Hi, Levi!" she said cheerfully as the door shut softly behind her.. "Hopefully the boys won't ruin the whole dinner while I'm gone."

"It'll probably be saved now that you're gone!" a voice called from inside.

"Shut up, Erd!" Petra snapped at the door, giving it a good pound. "At least I'm not like Auruo and putting peppermint in everything!"

"Hey, it's not Christmas unless there's peppermint!" Auruo shouted back.

Petra shook her head and looked at Levi as if to say, _These guys are such idiots._ "You wanted to talk to me?" she asked as they made their way to her bedroom.

"Yeah," he said, clearing his throat a bit. He tried no to look at Hanji and the others on the couch because he knew he'd see their smug grins if he turned around. Levi shut the door quickly behind them and leaned back against it, letting out a deep breath. "I'm your Secret Santa."

Her eyebrows rose. "Isn't that supposed to be, I don't know, a secret?" She looked slightly amused now, a hint of a smile on her lips.

"Yeah, well, I just wanted to tell you that your present is shit before you open it so you can prepare for the disappointment," he replied, tossing the gift at her. "You can open it right now if you want. I don't really care." To be honest, he did care. Half of him wanted her to open it right then and there so he could see if she liked it even a little bit but the other half of him wanted her to just burn it in some Christmas bonfire.

She shook the box a bit, holding it up to her ear to listen to the sound coming from the box. God, she was endearing. Her lips were pursed as she tried to guess what was inside. "Nah, I'm sure I'll like it whatever it is, Levi," she said decidedly, hugging the box to her chest.

He rolled his eyes. Typical Petra. "Okay, but if you hate it, tell me honestly," he said, jamming his hands into his pockets. "Or if you want I can just run out really quick and get you something you'll actually like before the party actually starts."

"You want to get me something I'll like?" she repeated, an eyebrow arched in curiosity.

"Well, yeah," Levi said, getting a bit flustered now. He shifted from foot to foot, visibly uncomfortable. "I mean, you're my friend and I like you so I want to get something you'd want."

A gleeful grin was spreading across her face now and she twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "You like me?" she asked, head tilting to the side.

There was no mistaking the heat that was rushing to his face now and Levi bit his tongue to stop himself from letting out a slew of expletives for stupidly blurting out such a lame declaration of love. "I like you," he said finally.

Petra smiled, dimples in her cheeks, and leaned forward. "You know what I want for Christmas, Levi?" she asked, leaning forward so that they were nearly touching foreheads. Levi could see every fleck of color in her amber eyes and for some reason that made it hard for him to remember to breathe.

"What?" he breathed.

She moved to his side, already reaching for the door to open it. "I'll tell you if you meet me underneath the mistletoe later tonight," she said cheerfully, foot halfway out of the door. "I'll just put this under the tree for you, Levi." Petra shook his gift to her and disappeared from view.

"Right, the mistletoe," he echoed, starting to get a vague idea of what Petra wanted from her Secret Santa for Christmas. He ran a hand through his hair. Maybe he could prove that he wasn't a completely incompetent gift giver after all. (And prove that he was superb kisser in the process.)

* * *

 _A/N: Just a short one while I edit longer stories. Now that I have more time, I keep obsessing over tiny details in my longer works and freaking out about how they're not perfect. Hopefully they'll be up soon though!_

 _I hope you enjoy them! Thank you very much to everyone who has been reading and reviewing!_


	4. Tradition

_A/N: I always feel like I should be writing but after I come home from jury duty all I want to do is stay in my bed and watch anime. It's terrible._

* * *

"This is perfect," sighed Petra, settling into Levi's arms like the perfect puzzle piece.

"Yes," breathed Levi. He buried his face in her copper hair, breathing in the scent of lavender that he had come to associate with her. Well, he would have preferred it if she had taken the wrapping paper off of her presents nicely, folded it neatly, and put it in a tidy pile instead of tearing it apart and throwing them in a mountain, but he could take care of that later. Other than that then, yeah, it was pretty perfect.

He felt her slump slightly in his arms, her head hanging to the side. "You know what would make it even more perfect? Our Christmas tradition," she said. Petra craned her neck to look at him, her lower lip pulled out in a pout.

"It's not a tradition," he groaned. "It's just a stupid thing you've been doing for a year and a half. Please don't refer to it as a tradition like it's a normal thing we do every year."

His girlfriend untangled herself from his arms and gave him an indignant look. " _We've_ been hiding Olaf for a year and you just want to forget about him just like that?" She attempted to snap her fingers but failed horribly, her fingers rubbing against each other silently. He had to smirk a little at that. "I can't believe I broke him."

She was, of course, referring to the damn porcelain replica of that idiotic snowman from _Frozen_ that their friend Hanji gave her two Christmases ago after they had all gone out to see the movie. Petra had fallen in love with the snowman while Levi had declared it the "creepiest fucking thing ever." Anything that could be beheaded shouldn't be able to talk. So of course Hanji bought a statue of the thing for Petra as a souvenir from Disneyland. After Petra had noticed Levi turning Olaf to face the wall she began to hide it in increasingly disturbing places: in between books on his shelf, in the shadows of his closet, even on the damn toilet. Levi would always find it staring at him with its beady eyes and shove it in the deepest parts of their dresser, but Petra would always take it out again and find another hiding place. It was at its most recent hiding spot, high up on top of the fridge where it could watch Levi eat breakfast, that it met its great demise. Levi had bolted into the kitchen when he heard the piercing shatter of porcelain and a shriek from Petra, expecting to see blood, and was relieved to find his girlfriend standing unharmed, mouth agape at the several pieces that Olaf had smashed into. Although he tried several times to convince Petra that the snowman was a stupid gift anyway, Petra was completely crushed and wouldn't stop talking about it for days. Heck, she was still talking about it and it had been a week since the incident.

"I'm starting to think you like that stupid snowman Hanji gave you more than me," Levi muttered. He reached over to start cleaning up Petra's mess of gift-wrap. He picked up a monstrous body of bows and ribbon stuck together and held it up at her while making a disgusted face.

Petra snatched it from him and rolled her eyes. "Levi, Olaf was going to be part of our history! It was going to be something we shared with our children!" She draped the bows on top of Levi's inky black hair.

Levi blinked through the tangle of ribbons dangling in front of his eyes. "Our what?" he stuttered, looking at her incredulously. Realizing how ridiculous he must have looked, he grabbed the mass of bows off of his head. "What did you say?"

"But, alas, all hope is gone," Petra sighed dramatically, ignoring Levi.

"Our kids?" he repeated, looking at her with his eyebrows raised.

"By the way, Levi," she continued, standing up and reaching up behind the tree where she had undoubtedly hid a present. She would do that, place a present in the back of the tree because, really, who looked at the back of a tree especially when it was backed up against a damn wall? Certainly not Levi. "What's this?"

Levi looked at what she was holding and immediately cursed. It wasn't a gift for him. It was much, much worse. In her hands was a box wrapped carefully in snowflake-covered paper with a red bow on top. A tag with the name "Petra" printed neatly on it was attached to the top. "That's not for you," he said stupidly. He had been debating about whether or not to hand it to her at all. After deep thought, he had concluded that he would deeply regret giving it to her and shoved it in the back of his closet. In his stupidity, he had forgotten Petra's uncanny ability to sniff out presents.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you planning on giving this to another person named Petra?" she asked. She held the box to her ear and shook it a couple of times, trying to determine what was inside. "I highly doubt you know another Petra. It's not that common of a name."

"Fine," he said grudgingly. He plopped down grumpily on the couch, refusing to meet her eyes. "It's yours. But you can't open it."

Petra got up and sat down next to him, their legs touching. "Why not?"

"Because it's dumb."

She put a hand on his knee and looked into his eyes. "Then I really have to open it, Levi," she said quite seriously, her amber eyes boring into his icy, gray stare.

"Petra, _no,"_ he growled, making a move to snatch the present from out of her hands but she quickly jumped up from the sofa and ran to the other side of the room. "Petra, give that back."

"I'm going to open it," she sang, discarding the bow onto the ground. She hadn't even bothered to toss it in the pile with the rest of the bows. Levi didn't know if she was trying to annoy him even more by doing this or not but it was working.

"Petra, give it to me so I can burn it," Levi ordered. He stood up from the couch and attempted to catch her in his arms but it was too late. The grinning ginger had already escaped into the bedroom where she was no doubt unwrapping that god-awful gift. Levi jiggled the handle and, when she didn't open up, banged on the door. "Open the damn door, Petra!"

There was a quiet gasp on the other side and then a silence. The door slowly creaked open and Petra looked at Levi through the gap. "Levi," she said quietly. The box was cradled in her arms carefully like a newborn baby.

"You've seen it," he said flatly. "We can throw it away now."

"Are you kidding?" she said, leaving the room now and tossing the box aside. (Levi was convinced that her growing untidiness was either due to Hanji's own disgusting habits or because he always cleaned up after her anyway.) She was holding the gift up for the entire world to see, marveling at its unsightliness. "Levi, did you make this?" In her hand she held the ugliest fucking thing Levi had ever seen and made. Three Styrofoam balls were glued together, two twigs stuck to the side of the middle sphere as arms. He had glued two black buttons on the top ball to make eyes (which turned out more _Coraline_ -esque than he had intended) as well as a small orange cone he had rolled out of paper for the nose. A few strands of yarn hung limply from the head as makeshift hair and a crooked smile drawn out in sharpie was stretched across the face. He hadn't intended to make it. It had just…happened one day. He was tired of her whining about breaking the snowman and he figured that if he could make her a replacement, well, at least she'd shut up about it, right? However, looking at his creation now, he felt how Frankenstein did when his monster came to life.

"I…did," Levi said. He resisted the urge to take the damn thing and throw it out of the window. "Petra, can we burn it now?"

"Levi, how could you suggest such a thing?" she asked. She hugged the stupid snowman to her chest and glared at him. "No, you cannot destroy your beautiful creation. Now that you have restored an Olaf into our household we can now go on with our tradition!"

"For the children?" Levi said tiredly. His girlfriend didn't seem repulsed by the absolute grotesque features of the new Olaf so he supposed that he could live with what he had done. Even if it meant that he'd have to stare at the creepy thing when he was showering or wherever the hell Petra decided to put the ugly thing.

"Yeah, for the children." She leaned over and pecked him on the cheek and ran off into another room of their apartment, no doubt searching for another place for new Olaf.

Levi sighed. It wasn't a tradition that he would have chosen but he supposed it would have to do.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks again for the reviews, favorites, and follows! Hopefully I'll squeeze in a couple of more stories before Christmas!_


	5. Bows

"Happy birthday, Papa," his daughter said solemnly as she once again placed another bow on him. This time she placed a miniature bow on his nose because the space on his head had already been taken up with other bows of various sizes.

"Thank you," he said in an equally serious manner. Although the bow itched, he made no move to remove it from his face.

"Sweetie, don't you think you've already put enough bows on Papa?" Petra asked, laughing a bit at how ridiculous Levi looked.

"No!" cried the three-year-old indignantly. She pouted and hugged Levi around the waist as tightly as her chubby, little arms could. Even at her young age she still looked like a miniature version of her mother. Her copper hair was cut in a short hairstyle similar to Petra and she had, thank god, inherited her mother's warm smile and friendly demeanor. The only thing she had from her father was the color of his eyes. "It's Papa's birthday!"

"Ah, Levi," Petra said, reaching out to remove a bow.

Levi quickly dodged, grabbing their giggling child as he escaped his wife's grasp. "No," he said. "They're mine."

Petra stood above him, arms folded with an amused smile on her lips. "And you're okay with how goofy you look with all of those ribbons stuck to you?" she asked, eyebrow arched.

"I look fucking incredible," he replied.

"Fucking incredible!" his daughter repeated happily. She tackled her father so that he fell on his back.

"Levi, honestly," Petra sighed. She wasn't mad, not really. He could tell by the hint of a smile that was hiding in the corner of her mouth.

He sat up, lifting his daughter up so that she was laughing giddily in midair. "It's my birthday," he reminded Petra. Also, he had quit trying to watch his language a month after his daughter started babbling. It was just too fucking impossible.

"Happy birthday!" his daughter squealed.

"Yeah," he said, bringing her close so he could kiss the tip of her nose. "Happy birthday."

* * *

 _A/N: It's more of a birthday fic for Levi but his birthday is on Christmas so it still counts, right?_

 _Aggressively listening to The Nutcracker Suite in the hopes that it will somehow get me to finish a couple of more stories before Christmas is over._

 _And of course my jury duty would be extended beyond Christmas. The court's present to me, I guess?_


	6. What Do You Want For Christmas?

A small hand tugged at his arm and Levi felt just about ready to snap. Who cares if the brat was only seven? Levi would be damned if his arm was going to be torn off by a second grader who so desperately wanted to sit on the lap of a guy clad in red who claimed to be the Santa Claus of legend. "Eren, if you tug on my arm one more time I will drive you back home and just take Mikasa with me," Levi growled, pulling his sleeve away from Eren's grip.

"But they said he was going to be here on the sign!" the child whined.

"Yeah, like in half an hour. He's on a lunch break," Levi replied, his words clipped. "A guy's got to eat, right?" Levi sighed for what seemed like the hundredth time that day. He honestly didn't know why he kept agreeing to baby-sit his cousin Mikasa and her friend Eren with Isabel. His sister had a habit of mysteriously disappearing for hours until it was time for the kids to get picked up.

Mikasa patted her friend's hand. "Eren," she said gently. "It's okay. We'll see him when he gets back." As usual, she was holding his hand instead of her cousin's. The fact that she was also so attached to her friend bothered Levi greatly, though he couldn't exactly explain why. It wasn't that Eren was a bad kid. It was just that Levi had never seen Mikasa that affectionate with a person aside from family and, well, Mikasa had always clung to him before Eren had come along. He had once suggested to Isabel that their cousin's attachment to Eren was a bit unnatural, prompting his sister to tease him about feeling protective of Mikasa and jealous that she was no longer giving him the most attention. He had only scoffed at the thought, but he made sure not to discuss his concern again. He didn't need Mikasa or Eren knowing he particularly cared about their relationship.

"Oi, brat," Levi said. "Why don't you think about riding the carousel or one of those other stupid rides they have while we wait?" He was getting a bit tired of walking around aimlessly in the mall. He silently cursed Isabel for suggesting they go there today so that the kids could look at the holiday decorations that all of the stores had set up. Instead of watching them stare in awe at those ridiculously festive gifts in toy stores, the kids were dragging him about to sit on the lap of some old man dressed in a red velvet suit. Not only that, but he had to deal with other crying brats screaming to their parents about wanting this toy or that toy. Levi gritted his teeth, seriously debating the idea of leaving the mall with Eren and Mikasa and abandoning his sister. Screw her for ditching him on babysitting duty for the millionth time.

He felt a sharp kick in his shin and winced slightly. "Don't call Eren a brat," his cousin said, glaring at him with her cool, gray eyes. She hugged Eren's arm tightly and Levi had the urge to split them apart.

"Fine, fine," Levi grumbled, rubbing his shin. He had way too many bruises scattered across his legs for insulting the stupid kid. "What do you guys want to do then? We could visit the Lego store. Maybe you're hungry? Or…" Before he knew it, the little hand that was in his had slipped away. He looked in the direction of scampering footsteps and saw Eren dragging a rather surprised Mikasa towards…

"The bookstore!" Eren breathed. He stopped for a second, looking back at his babysitter. "Levi, I saw Santa's elves walk in there! Santa's probably in there too!"

Levi looked at the glass windows of the store and, sure enough, he saw a couple of people clad in green and red. They were undoubtedly wearing some sort of Christmas costume. Even the most festive people didn't dress up like Christmas puked all over them until the actual holiday. Most people would easily take their children to a bookstore but Eren and Mikasa weren't Levi's children and he had a deep aversion to stepping foot in bookstores.

Levi fidgeted, folding his arms across his chest and shuffling a bit on his feet. "I highly doubt Santa would be in there. Besides," he said, frowning at the huge Barnes & Nobles sign, "why would his elves be there? Shouldn't they be at his workshop helping him make toys for you guys?" He tore his eyes away from the store, trying to look anywhere else.

Mikasa walked over to Levi and took his hand in hers. "Levi, let's go."

"You know how I feel about bookstores, Mikasa," Levi hissed. Jesus, why couldn't those stupid elves have walked into some other store? Hell, he would have felt more comfortable walking the children into Victoria's Secrets than Barnes & Nobles. (He was sure that parents would feel differently but who cared about them?)

"Aw, Levi, come on!" Eren whined. "I know you hate bookstores but Santa might be in there! Besides, it's not like people know that you wrote that book. It was a while ago, wasn't it?"

"Eren," Levi growled. Part of him hated Mikasa for telling her friend that her cousin was an author who wrote a famous book. Damn his teacher for submitting that stupid story in a writing contest so many years ago. True, he eventually published it under the pen name Rivaille when he won and no one really knew who he was because of his refusal to do any sort of interviews, but thinking about how his novels now lined the shelves of bookstores everywhere made him feel strange. The last time he had been to a bookstore there was a whole table dedicated to his novel, complete with figurines, plushies, and other merchandise. Knowing other people adored his writing, p. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with this whole experience. It didn't help that he himself was a bit of a recluse, preferring to keep himself in the shadows while his book stole the spotlight. He liked keeping the two worlds – the world where he was just a normal university student and the world where he was a famous author – apart and keeping away from bookstores let him do that.

Eren frowned at him and for a second Levi felt kind of like the Grinch, a huge jerk without a heart. That feeling soon vanished when the kid took Mikasa's hand and stuck his tongue out at Levi. "Fine, we'll just go by ourselves. We're big kids now!"

 _Big kids that still believe in a guy that goes around in a sled pulled by flying reindeer_ , Levi thought. He didn't say that out loud though. It would only give Mikasa another reason to attack his already battered and bruised legs. "Fine, do that. I don't care," Levi spat. Damn kids.

"Bye, Levi," Mikasa said as her friend dragged her away. "We'll be back soon."

Levi harrumphed, watching them as they walked into the store and away from his view. He walked over to a bench across from the store and slumped down in it. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started playing Flappy Bird while he waited for the kids to return. Leaving them in the bookstore by themselves wasn't a bad idea, was it? After all, Mikasa had a pretty good head on her shoulders and Isabel left them alone all of the time when she was babysitting them, often because she wanted to talk to her friends on the phone. Still, they were normally left unsupervised at home, where no strangers could barge in and take them away. He doubted that the children would cause trouble by themselves in the store; they weren't the type to cause a ruckus or anything like that. He frowned at his screen, furiously typing away so that he wouldn't hit another green pipe. Eren he wasn't that worried about. No one would want to kidnap that kid. He was too much of a hassle, always rushing from here to there and whining about wanting to see everything. Mikasa, though…

"Fuck it," Levi muttered, shoving his phone into his pocket. He stared determinedly at the front doors of the bookstore. No damn kidnapper would get his filthy hands on his adorable cousin, he'd make sure of that. Screw the bookstore. He wasn't going to let his pathetic feelings about seeing his books on the shelves keep him from taking care of Mikasa.

He dug his hands into his pockets and stalked into the bookstore, muttering a quick thank you to a stranger who held open the door for him. They couldn't have gone far, he reasoned. Kids certainly had a lot of energy, but he doubted that their stubby little legs could get them carry them a great distance. He'd probably notice if they had left the store. He'd only left them alone for, what, ten minutes? A quick glance of his watch told him it had actually only been five. He wasn't sure if that was good or bad. On the one hand, he should feel like a good cousin for wanting to look after her and her friend. On the other hand, he really couldn't stop worrying about her for five minutes? It was kind of sweet in an embarrassing way.

Levi checked down the children's section and frowned. There was no trace of them. He had already checked the large holiday book display. It was the first place he had looked and he was incredibly surprised when he didn't see Eren enraptured by the many books about Santa Claus. Then again, Eren was adamant about finding the real deal and Levi wouldn't have been surprised if he wasn't satisfied with the colorful pictures.

He was getting a bit worried now. He had already looked down the aisles of sections he thought they would visit, but there was no trace. If only children came with traceable microchips like pets did. Levi cursed himself under his breath, regretting his decision to just let them wander around the stupid bookstore by themselves. This was just another reason for him to hate bookstores. Then again, if he hadn't hated bookstores in the first place he probably wouldn't be stuck in this predicament.

Then he heard it, that annoyingly excited voice, currently speaking animatedly to a couple of other people. Levi didn't recognize any of their voices. He snuck stealthily over to the aisle, grabbing a hardcover copy of _Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows_ with him. Yes, it was a fantastic book but he'd still use it to bash someone's head in if he had to. He crept closer, straining his ears to hear the conversation.

"…true they can fly?" he heard Eren ask incredulously. From his tone, Levi could tell that Eren had found the elves. Or, pondering the worst case scenario, some punks who were dressed as Santa's helpers so they could lure unsuspecting children away from their parents. His grip on the book tightened.

There was laughter and a deep voice replied, "Of course! How else is he supposed to transport all of those gifts? They're very useful, the reindeer, especially when he's going across the Atlantic."

"Levi always says all of that's made up," Eren said to them. Again, Levi heard them laugh. From what he could tell, the group was mostly male but he could detect a tinkling laugh that sounded more feminine than the others. "I always knew he was wrong!"

Levi peered down to where they were and grimaced. Of course they'd be standing right next to the display table showcasing his book, which now had a new cover as well as extra illustrations inside. Maybe he could just quickly capture Mikasa's attention to let her know where he was and she'd find a way to get Eren out of there. While Levi was contemplating how exactly to subtly let Mikasa know where he was, Eren spotted him.

"There he is!" Eren said to the people excitedly, eyes lit up like the lights hung up on the tree in the middle of the mall. He waved frantically to Levi, motioning him to come over quickly. "Levi, look! I told you I saw them here!"

Levi straightened up, walking stiffly over to the children and their new acquaintances. He noted the strange "elves," though most of them were too tall to be seriously considered as Santa's helpers. The only one who could believably masquerade as an elf was a girl with ginger hair, who seemed to be just an inch or two shorter than Levi. (And, Levi hated to admit, he was incredibly short, particularly for a guy. He found that a perpetual scowl made up for it though.) The rest of the group consisted of guys who were quite tall. They looked pretty ridiculous with their green frocks and red and green striped stockings. The pointy boots and hats didn't seem to help either. Levi bit his tongue to keep from making a scathing remark about their outfits. Still, they didn't seem to be the type of creepy people that would kidnap anyone. They looked like high school students and, from what Levi recalled from his high school days, probably didn't have any interest with children.

"Ah, so you're the infamous Levi," the elf with brown hair mused aloud. "This kid said you didn't believe in us."

He didn't respond. His eyes flickered from the book display, to Mikasa, to Eren.

Mikasa, sucking quietly on a candy cane from who knows where, stepped forward, putting a hand on her cousin's arm. "Are you okay, Levi?" she asked. "Do you want us to leave?"

"It's fine, it's fine," Levi muttered. He shook out his shoulders a bit. He really needed to loosen up and relax. It's just a bookstore. It wasn't weird to see your book displayed in a bookstore, he reasoned to himself. What's weird is if you just totally avoid the fact that you wrote a book in the first place. After all, it's not like J.K. Rowling just tries to ignore the whole entire _Harry Potter_ series, right? He focused back to his cousin, hoping that engaging in conversation would keep him from being freaked out about his novel. "Where did you get that, Mikasa?" He nodded at the striped candy in her hand.

"Ah, sorry!" The ginger stepped forward, raising her hand and wiggling her fingers a bit in a little wave. When she smiled at him she tilted her head, the bells hanging from her ears jingled. She lifted the basket hanging from her arm and he could see that it was filled with an assortment of peppermint and chocolate candy. "I gave it to her. We still have a lot more and we're only going to be here for a couple of more hours so I didn't think it would matter very much if I gave some to Eren and Mikasa."

"I told you that giving candy to children without their parents around was a bad idea," the brown-haired guy grumbled a bit, arms folded.

"Yeah," agreed another elf. His hair was a sandy-brown color and he looked a lot older than the rest of them. He was probably around the same age as them though. "And how come you only get to hold onto the candy anyway?"

The girl glared at him, clutching the basket of sweets tightly to her chest. "Because you guys keep eating them while we're on duty!" She looked at Levi and made a face that seemed to say, _Can you believe I have to deal with these overgrown children?_ A hand attempted to sneak its way into the basket but the girl smacked it away. "Erd! What did I say?"

The tallest among them, a guy with his blonde hair tired in a little bun in the back, grinned toothily at her. "Yeah, I guess it's best if Petra holds onto them. She has the best self-restraint after all." He ruffled the ginger girl's hair ( _Her name is Petra_ , Levi thought) and glanced at Levi. "I'm Erd. This is Petra, Gunter, and Auruo. Your cousins caught us off-duty while Petra was picking up a book for one of her relatives." He gestured toward the girl with copper hair, the brunet, and the elf with sandy hair.

Levi fidgeted with the heavy book in his hand and somewhat glared at Eren. "Only one of them is my cousin actually. I hope they haven't given you much trouble."

Petra laughed and shook her head, bells still jingling with every movement she made. "Nah, we're supposed to be working with kids anyway. 'Santa's helpers' are easy community service points." Petra arched an eyebrow at him, a wide grin spreading across her face. "Eren was telling us you didn't believe in Santa Claus?"

"I told you he was real! Erd and Gunter and Petra and Auruo know everything about him!" Eren crowed. If he were a dog he'd be wagging his tail right about now. Levi kind of wanted to punch him for being so damn happy.

"Hey, are you buying that for someone?" Auruo asked, pointing at the book in Levi's hands. "Harry Potter's a really good choice."

"Auruo's super late to the party. He only recently discovered Rowling's wizarding world like last year," Gunter whispered loudly to Levi, prompting a swift jab in the ribs from Auruo.

Levi looked at the copy of _Deathly Hallows_ in his arms as if he had no idea how it had gotten there. "Ah, no, actually," Levi muttered, wondering how to discard the book as quickly as possible now that he had figured out that the people talking to Eren and Mikasa had no intention of kidnapping them. "I just realized that I already have presents for everyone."

"He was probably going to use it to bash your heads open," Mikasa piped up. Her quiet voice made Auruo and Gunter jump a bit, seemingly forgetting that she was there until she had spoken. She popped the red-striped candy back into her mouth and sucked on it as if her cousin attacking people with best-selling books was a normal occurrence.

"Mikasa, go talk to Eren and Erd about that fat man in the read suit," he muttered.

His cousin smirked and walked off to the side where Eren and Erd were talking, grabbing Eren's hand once she had reached him. Levi resisted the urge to snatch her away and separate her from Eren for the rest of their lives.

Petra giggled. "I was actually going to buy that book for my cousin," she said, nodding her head towards the display table right next to them and Levi bit his tongue from groaning. Petra picked up a copy and flipped through the glossy pages. Her amber eyes sparkled as they took in the beautiful new illustrations.

His tongue felt heavy in his mouth. " _The Last of Mankind?"_ he finally uttered.

Her eyes lit up and she looked eagerly at him. "By Rivaille," she said, stepping closer to him. "You've heard of it then? It's one of my favorite books!"

"Oh no," groaned Auruo and Gunter in unison.

Petra shot them a look.

"She's never going to shut up about it now," Gunter sighed.

"Run while you can, Levi," Auruo advised.

"Oh, go talk to Erd then if you don't want to listen to me talk about one of the greatest books ever written," Petra snapped, rolling her eyes.

The boys grumbled but did as she said, joining Erd in spreading lies about Christmas.

"This is really one of your favorite books?" Levi asked skeptically. He looked grimly at the table full of different versions of his novel. He never really did like the idea of a graphic novel but his publicist said it would sell well for those who liked to see the action visually instead of written out. He would have much rather preferred they had just stuck with the original written novel with added illustrations like the one Petra was holding, to be honest.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. Her eyes were sparkling and she looked about ready to burst. "It's one of the greatest books I've ever read. The author was only fourteen when he wrote it, isn't that incredible? I read it in eighth grade and I'm still obsessed with it even though it doesn't look like he's going to write anything else about it. He's kind of a recluse. It's been six years and it doesn't look like he'll be writing anything soon." She smiled down at the book in her arms and shrugged.

"Really," Levi said, doing his best to seem as disinterested as possible. Still, her love for the book was infectious and, he had to admit, kind of adorable too. She could probably talk about the damn thing all day if she wanted to.

"Yeah," Petra said with a rueful smile. She rubbed the spine of the book, tracing the golden letters on the side with a finger. "He seems really shy about all of the fame and whatnot. No interviews or anything. I can kind of understand that, though. It'd be weird to be a normal teenager one day and then a best-selling author the next."

There was some sort of deep understanding in her tone and Levi let out a breath he never realized he was holding. "Yeah, pretty weird," he said softly.

Petra smiled at him and it was as dazzling as the lights on the tree at the center of the mall. Glancing at her watch, however, she frowned and her brow had a cute little furrow. "Oh! My shift starts soon. I should probably buy this." She flashed him a toothy grin and was about to leave before she stopped herself. Turning around and temporarily placing the copy of _The Last of Mankind_ onto a nearby shelf, she stuck her hand deep into her basket and dug around before pulling out a peppermint bark square. Petra handed it to Levi.

"Ah, thanks," he said, somewhat flustered at this small act of kindness. He wasn't even that big of a fan of peppermint bark (white chocolate wasn't real chocolate and was therefore an abomination in his opinion), but he took the square of chocolate anyway and was pleasantly rewarded with another sweet smile from the girl in the elf costume. "Shouldn't you be saving this for the children?"

She waved her hand around, rolling her eyes. "I have plenty of more bags of candy hidden away. Don't tell the other guys though." She winked at him playfully.

"What do you want for Christmas?" he blurted out before she could turn to leave again.

"What do I want for Christmas?" she mused allowed, echoing his question. "Now it wouldn't really make sense for me to want anything for Christmas, would it?"

"Elves can want things," he insisted.

Petra laughed. "What do _you_ want for Christmas, Mr. Levi?" she asked.

"Your number would be nice." He had no idea where that came from. It sounded like his friend Hanji had temporarily taken over his brain and forced those words to come out. She would no doubt be patting him on the back for this random assertiveness if she were here right now. He could even hear her laughing somewhere in the back of his head and he silently cursed her for being annoying even when she wasn't there.

To his surprise, Petra only grinned wider. "Maybe if you come visit Santa later he'll give it to you." She shrugged. "You never know." She snatched the book off of the shelf where she had left it and gave a little wave to Levi. "See you later, Levi. It was nice meeting you."

"You too," he said, giving her a small half wave before feeling awkward and shoving his hands back into his pockets.

He watched as she dragged the other elves away from Eren and Mikasa (who were enraptured by an intricately fabricated tale by the three overgrown elves about a factory malfunction that had taken place at Santa's workshop last Christmas).

"Eren, Mikasa," he called, waving them over. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?" Eren asked, quickening his pace a bit to catch up with Levi's brisk walk.

"To see Santa," he replied. "That's what you wanted, right?"

"I thought you didn't want to see Santa," Mikasa said.

"I changed my mind." He couldn't help but feel a little bit gleeful when he heard the Eren let out an excited cheer. Maybe he'd get to talk to Petra again. And maybe, if he was lucky, he'd get her number or, should Santa decide that Levi had been especially good this year, her address. Maybe he could slip a special gift under her tree, a specially signed copy of _The Last of Mankind_ by the author Rivaille himself. After all, elves deserved to get something for Christmas too.

* * *

 _A/N: Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all have a good one :) Thanks again for reading/reviewing/following!_

 _I really really hate writing titles. Because I suck at creative titles._

 _Levi's book, if you want to know what it's about, is similar to Isayama's prototype of Attack on Titan. That was pretty heartbreaking too._


	7. Wish

He always thought it was creepy, peering into the windows of others and watching them. It was also dangerous, particularly if the people they were spying on were younger.

"You're still here though," Hanji pointed out, her wings fluttering. As always, her face was stretched in a grin.

"To make sure you don't get yourself in trouble. The last time I let you spy on people alone you tried to take someone's canine out before it was due," he said, glowering.

His friend laughed and ruffled his white hair. She liked to joke that his hair had gotten whiter from stress as a result from being friends with her, though they both knew that Frosts were known to have characteristically white hair, but Levi was beginning to think that his hair had indeed gotten paler if that were even possible. "Come on, Levi! It was just the one time and his tooth was coming out anyway. Getting teeth is in my job description!"

He rolled his eyes, swatting her hand away. "Not before they're under the pillow, you stupid tooth fairy," he grumbled. He harrumphed and crossed his arms, glancing grumpily into the window. "Why do you even like watching these people anyway? They're way too grown to be losing any teeth unless someone gets theirs knocked out." If there was anything Hanji loved more than filthy baby teeth, it was finding a bloody tooth someone lost in a fight. Levi could never really understand it.

Her eyes sparkled at the mention of it. "Ah, if only that would happen," she said dreamily. She pressed her face against the glass, something Levi always hated, and sighed. "Nope, don't think that's likely to happen, considering these guys are friends and everything. Still, observing humans is always fun. This one's peculiar." She pointed at a tall blonde guy in the room, some facial hair already sprouting above his lip and on his chin.

"Looks like all of the other ones," scoffed Levi. He tugged lightly on the fairy's ponytail. "Stop shoving your face up against the window, stupid. They're going to see you."

Hanji rolled her eyes but kept her face pressed against the pane. "They're not going to see me. They're, like, sixteen or whatever. They're way too old to believe in us." She pulled on Levi's sleeve. "Hey, come on! Let's eavesdrop on them!" She gave him a toothy grin.

Levi grumbled a bit but leaned his ear against the side of the house, tilting his head so he could still see what was happening inside. It was better to just go along with whatever Hanji wanted or else she wouldn't shut up.

"…coming back to school soon? You've been gone for quite a while, Petra," a voice was saying. The speaker was the "peculiar" one Hanji had been talking about earlier. He sat on the edge of the bed with girl bundled up beneath the blankets. His hand was placed on her knee, patting it gently.

"Yeah, none of us are short enough to have that ridiculous problem with Mike when holding up posters for projects," snickered another. It was a sandy-haired guy sitting on a chair that was across the girl's bed.

"The weird one's Mike," Hanji whispered to Levi, making him jump a bit. "Those are his friends. They've been visiting the girl, Petra, a while because she's been sick lately. That's Auruo, Erd, and Gunter." She quickly pointed at the sandy-haired boy, another blonde guy but with his hair tied in a bun, and a brown-haired boy.

"How long have you been following them, Hanji?" Levi asked. "That's even creepier than initially thought."

The fairy only grinned at him and turned back to continue watching.

The girl was frowning now, struggling to sit up despite her friend Erd telling her she should just lie down. "I'm fine!" she kept insisting as her friends fussed about her, rearranging her pillows and making sure she was tucked in snuggly. Her face, flushed an unnatural red, said otherwise. The shine in her amber eyes seemed glassy and the words that came from her mouth were seemingly forced out, as if she didn't have enough energy to even speak. "I'm tougher than a stupid fever, you guys. Don't baby me." She brushed her ginger hair out of her face. It was short but was still incredibly tangled from resting on her bed all day.

Levi felt the corner of his mouth quirk upwards. He didn't particularly like humans but he quite liked her strength despite her apparent illness. It was admirable. He felt a finger prod his side and he flinched. "Hanji, what the fuck?" he hissed, glaring.

She had a mischievous grin on her face. If Levi had to pick one expression that annoyed him the most, that grin she had on right now would probably be the one he'd choose. "She's cute, huh? I thought you'd like her." Levi could feel his pale face flush, he didn't know why, and was about to respond but Hanji had already looked back at Petra who was currently bickering with her friends Gunter and Erd about whether or not they should even be visiting. Her eyes softened. "They care about her a lot."

He let his gaze return to the five friends and saw Petra, her hand folded across her chest. She was refusing to look at her friends. There was something childish about her stubbornness and refusal of being taken care of but he pressed his lips tightly together to suppress his smile. He didn't need Hanji teasing him again.

"We're just very worried," Gunter said. "You've been having that fever off and on since last week."

Petra sighed, snuggling back inside of her blankets. She seemed too tired to argue anymore. "My dad's been fussing over me too. I just thought that since you guys were here I wouldn't have to listen about how I'm so sick all of the time. I'm sick of being sick and I'm sick of being told how sick I am."

The guys exchanged guilty glances.

"Do you want to hear what happened to Auruo today?" Erd said, breaking the silence.

Petra rolled over in her bed to face them, propping herself up with her elbow. She brightened up a bit, a smile on her lips. "What?" she asked.

"No, no, don't tell her," groaned Auruo, shaking his head excessively. "It wasn't anything very interesting, Petra. Don't listen to him!"

"He saw a really cute girl in the hall today," snickered Gunter, "and tripped as he called out to her. He bit his tongue so hard blood gushed out and the girl _shrieked_ , Petra! Poor girl was scared out of her mind."

Petra giggled as Auruo buried his head in his hands. "You guys are having too much fun with this," he grumbled. "It wasn't even that much blood!"

"It was a _lot_ of blood," Mike told Petra, smirking a little. "A whole fucking river was streaming from his mouth."

She scrunched up her nose. "God, you guys are gross," she laughed.

"We really miss you, Pet," Gunter said quietly.

"Geez, you guys are so sappy," Petra muttered a bit huffily. "I thought we weren't going to talk about me being sick anymore." She looked tiredly around her room as if searching for a new conversation topic. Her eyes flickered about before finally settling on the window Levi and Hanji were peering through. She squinted and an odd expression spread across her face, a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

Hanji looked at Levi, equally confused as the girl. "Does she see us? Why does it look like she sees us?" It was the first time Levi had ever witnessed her panicked.

"Is there anything wrong, Pet?" asked Mike. "You look a little funny."

"Isn't that normal though?" Auruo snickered.

Petra ignored both of them, instead struggling to get herself out of her bed. Her arms shook as she pulled herself up and Levi was afraid she would collapse. She managed to sit up, wobbling slightly and looking a bit dazed.

Gunter reached out to steady her. "Petra!" he exclaimed, startled. "Your father said you were supposed to lie down!"

She shook him off, eyes still fixated on the window. "Why are there people outside of my window?" she asked slowly. Petra blinked a few times as if Hanji and Levi would disappear soon. She tilted her head and began to take her first shaky steps toward the sill. Her steps made large thumping noises as her feet hit the carpeted floor. Her eyes seemed to be locked on Levi and, for some unexplainable reason, Levi felt rooted to the spot. Maybe he was entranced by the way her eyes were the exact same color as those glassy amber sap he saw drip from trees or maybe he was attracted by her stubbornness to walk towards him despite her frail state.

"Levi," Hanji hissed. She had already hid, floating higher above the roof of the house so she was out of sight. "Levi, we have to go."

He didn't move, though. He stayed there, frozen in place like a fly trapped in amber. Levi watched as she made her way to the window, her friends hurriedly rushing to clutch onto her arms to steady her. Soon she was at the window, staring right at him. She reached out a hand to touch the glass pane and Levi reached out to mirror her action. Their hands were palm to palm, separated only by a glass. Petra opened her mouth to say something but no words came out. He didn't blame her. He wouldn't know what to say if he saw a strange person lurking outside of his house watching him either.

"Petra," Erd called softly, trying to draw her away from the window. "There's nothing there." He gestured toward the window, obviously not able to see Levi.

Levi felt a hand pulling him away. "Levi, what the hell?" Hanji grunted, tearing him away from the window. "This is so unlike you. It's more like me actually. Did we switch places without knowing?"

"Let go," he murmured, pulling his sleeve away from the fairy. He scooted over so he was right next to the window but not in sight. He had to strain his ears to listen to the conversation.

"…thought I saw someone but I could have been hallucinating." He heard Petra sigh on the other side of the glass. "Maybe I'm sicker than I thought." There were a few steps and then a thud, which Levi assumed was Petra collapsing back onto her bed.

The boys surrounded her bed after shuffling about. "We should probably leave now, Petra," said Erd, patting her head. Damn, Levi wished they would speak a little louder. "We'll come by tomorrow, alright?"

"Thanks for stopping by," she chirped, but even Levi could tell her cheerful voice was forced. "Tell me if Auruo does anything stupid again!"

There was another shuffle of feet and Levi heard the door of her room creep open as the boys stepped out. Auruo muffled protests about how he wasn't going to do anything stupid while everyone laughed and said goodbye.

Levi chanced a peek through the window and saw Petra lying on her bed, staring at the ceiling. She was shaking slightly and it was only after she had covered her eyes with her arm did he realize that there were tears streaming down her cheeks. There was a strange twinge in his chest; it felt like someone was clenching his heart in their fist. He felt the need to slip into her room and press his cool hand against her burning forehead, make her cool down somehow, but he was stuck on the other side.

Hanji was dragging him away from the house now, flying poorly while hauling him in her arms. "Levi, we needed to go like five minutes ago," she hissed, panting heavily. "Also, why are you so damn heavy?"

He writhed in her grasp and she dropped him into the soft snow on the ground. He grunted, brushing himself off. "I'm going so stop griping about everything," he growled. Levi slid easily across an icy path he created for himself, following Hanji lazily.

She flitted ahead nervously. "That girl could see us, couldn't she?" She glanced back at the house. "She could see you anyway. Isn't that strange?"

Levi shrugged as if he couldn't care less but he really was intrigued. How could she see them? She had to be at least sixteen and people had lost her faith in all of that magic stuff by the age of twelve. What kind of person had that sort of faith in magic at that age? It was strange but at the same time kind of admirable, Levi thought.

"We probably shouldn't go back to her house," Hanji was saying. Her fingers moved around nervously, playing with her already messy hair. "It could be dangerous, a person that old knowing we exist."

"Yeah, we probably shouldn't go back," Levi echoed, although that was the exact opposite of what he was thinking. He went back that night and every night after that.

 **XxXxX**

It was more of the same, he thought after he had observed them for a while. The boys would step into her room, greeting her loudly and asking how she felt. There were always a few moments where they would fuss over her; Gunter would make the biggest deal out of it and ask her if she had taken in enough liquids or if she was comfortable. A little banter would kick up and Petra would laugh at the things they said. Oftentimes her friends would recant an amusing event or two that happened during school so Petra could giggle some more.

He started to understand why Hanji liked watching people when she wasn't busy collecting baby teeth, though he'd never admit it to her. Spying on Petra and her friends was starting to be a habit for him, creepy as it sounded. He always made to sure to stay out of sight, only peering in enough so he could see in but not enough so his body would be visible like last time. A couple of times he thought he saw Petra look over at him but her eyes just seemed to glaze over where he was before returning to her friends, talking like he wasn't there at all. That first time was probably just a random occurrence, he decided.

Levi knew all of their eccentricities by now. Auruo and Petra seemed the closest. They would tease each other constantly, bringing up embarrassing stories about one another for the others to hear. Mike, Hanji was definitely right about him being weird, liked to smell things. He would always greet Petra with a hello before leaning over to sniff her a bit and she'd giggle, good-naturedly complaining that his scruffy facial hair was scratchy. Gunter was probably the most serious one, always handing Petra the homework first thing when he walked in and keeping her up-to-date on class assignments. He'd also try to squeeze in questions about her well-being whenever he could and she'd grumble about how she was fine. Erd had a habit of grabbing a pen off of her desk, clicking it as he conversed with the others. Personally, the constant click of the pen drove Levi mad but no one else seemed to mind.

It was nice seeing Petra, he thought, how she'd perk up noticeably when her father said that company had come for her. The visited her almost every day in the afternoon. She was normally flipping through her phone or reading a book when she wasn't having company. Sometimes she was napping but she'd groggily accept visitors if they came. As the days grew colder and colder the visits became shorter and shorter. The boys apologized, saying something about exams and later talked about how they would be going away for vacation. Petra only smiled and said she understood, though Levi could tell this saddened her. Now he often observed her by herself, reading passages and stopping to sigh once in a while. He had the strangest urge to knock on her window and ask if he could keep her company but he knew even Hanji would think it was reckless so he bound himself to the foot of her sill, watching her for an hour or two a day.

He visited Petra whenever he could, drawn to her windowsill like a bee to honey. Levi used to leave whenever her friends did but then he started leaving later and later, making Hanji to become curious about where he was.

"You're usually earlier than this, Levi," Hanji said one night, gazing at the setting sun. "I thought you liked getting your work done before the sun set. You were always one of the most unenthusiastic Frosts I've ever known."

Levi shrugged off her comment. "A Frost's work is never done in the winter," he said simply. "Guess I just found something to do."

 **XxXxX**

He came to her window one afternoon and was surprised to see her room empty. Levi rubbed his hand against the window, trying to get the frost off so he could see better, but there was still no sign of her. He squinted his eyes and scanned the room left to right, still seeing nothing. A frown was set on his lips, much deeper than his normal unhappy expression, and he leaned in closer to the window, hoping that he had perhaps missed her beneath the pile of blankets on her bed.

Suddenly, the familiar ginger girl he had been spying on for days popped up from under his gaze, the one place he had forgotten to check because who the hell would be there anyway? Levi was so surprised that he had nearly fallen off of the roof.

"Gotcha!" she said. A small, triumphant smile was on her lips and, despite her ill condition, she still managed to radiate like the sun. He decided that it was she had her own kind of magic. She looked at him, head tilted slightly, and tucked a lock of her golden brown hair behind her ear. A simple silver stud decorated her earlobe. "You've been watching me for quite a while." She wasn't scared. Her slight shivering, Levi concluded, came from the chills she felt from being sickly.

"I have," he admitted. "You saw me?"

"Yeah," she replied. Petra wrapped her arms around herself and shivered. "I almost didn't because your hair is so white. It matched the snow that was everywhere. I saw your eyes though." She looked at him and there he was again, that bug encased in amber unable to move. A small, pale hand extended toward him, reaching to trace his brow. Suddenly, her hand stopped as if she realized that it was moving of its own accord and she clutched the moving hand close to her heart. He didn't know why but he was slightly disappointed when her hand retreated.

Levi shrugged. "I guess I'm not that good at hiding then, am I?"

She grinned. "Not really." A funny look crossed her face and she heaved over, coughing heavily. The coughs were consuming her whole being and when she was done she looked even sicklier. The feverish flush was gone from her face but Levi could hardly call the pale white in her cheeks an improvement. Coughing seemed to have taken all of her energy. She was breathing a little harder now, clutching the windowsill to steady herself.

"Can I come in?" he asked after a bit. Maybe he could get her to sit down or something. Telling her to would probably irk her since she was always being hassled about resting by her friends and father. "

She nodded, gesturing for him to come in and shutting the window after him. "Who are you?" she asked him.

He settled down on a chair by her desk covered by various worksheets and notes her friends had dropped off earlier in the week. "Shouldn't you have asked me that before you let me in?"

"Probably but it's a little late for that said," she said, sitting down on her bed. She wrapped herself up in her blankets like a cocoon.

"I'm a Frost," he said hesitantly. "I make it snow. Freeze the tongues of the weirdos who like poles when it's too cold outside. Create all of those unique snowflake patterns, that kind of thing."

"Frost like Jack Frost then?" she asked.

"Kind of, but Jack Frost is just a generic term for all of us." He leaned back in the chair, stretching his legs. "My name's actually Levi."

"Levi," she repeated slowly as if she was savoring his name. He decided he quite liked the way she said it. Petra looked at him as she said it as if connecting him to the name. "My name is Petra."

"I know," he said before realizing this was probably not what he should have said. He felt himself turn pink.

She looked rather amused. "You've been eavesdropping too. That's very rude, Levi," she teased. It wasn't mean though and he felt less uncomfortable. "Why have you been watching me?"

"I guess because you were able to see me," he confessed. "That's pretty weird for someone as old as you. People don't really believe in magic when they're your age."

"It's more fun than all of that science stuff, isn't it?" she said, grinning. She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged her legs. Her head was resting on her knees and he couldn't help but think about how large her eyes were. "But that explains why my friends didn't see you at all. My friends always made fun of me for insisting there was some kind of magic involved but I guess they're the stupid ones now."

Levi tried not to smile at how happy she looked about being right, her chest puffed out and her hands on her hips.

"Should you even be here right now?" she wondered aloud. Petra looked at him, eyes widened in awe as if she finally realized what a mythical being he was. "Don't you have places to go? You need to make it snow in other places, right?"

"Not really," he said. "There are a lot of Frosts. I'm one of many and I only handle this district, the one you live in. Making it snow everywhere would be a pain in the ass."

She nodded, eyes wide with awe. He couldn't help but think about how child-like she looked and he understand how someone like her had seen him. "That makes sense."

"Why did you open the window for me then?" he asked.

Petra shrugged. "It's been pretty lonely. My friends haven't been around because they're all away for the holidays," she said, rubbing her arm. "And you didn't seem to be very threatening, no offense. I was pretty curious."

"I'm not supposed to be here," he confessed, suddenly very conscious about how forbidden this interaction was. "You're not supposed to know I exist."

She rolled her eyes. "Are you afraid I'm going to tell people?" she scoffed. "As if people would believe me. I'm an incredibly ill, bedridden girl with off-and-on fevers for the past week and a half. I highly doubt anyone would believe my words about a handsome stranger that can make snowflakes appear from his fingertips."

His first thought should have been filled with distrust for her, this sick girl with golden, honey hair and beautiful amber eyes who could reveal that mythological beings like Frosts were real and set the world on a mad hunt for everything magical, but the only thing he could think was, _She called me a handsome stranger._ Realizing he was staring at her stunned with his mouth agape, Levi straightened up and cleared his throat.

"I'll do it on one condition," Petra giggled, amused at the flustered Levi. She held up a slender finger, bringing it up close so that it was almost touching the tip of Levi's nose. "You'll come back."

He brought his own finger up against hers, the tips touching, and he was surprised at how warm her touch was. "I'll come back," he promised.

 **XxXxX**

After a few days, Levi believed he knew her better than the changing of the seasons or the exact composition of a snowflake. He knew that her hair felt exactly how it felt, like silk spun from the sun. At times he would got lost in her eyes and she'd catch him staring. That's how he found out that her laugh sounded like bells. She was small, smaller than him even, and she would roll her eyes and tell him what a pain it was, especially when she had to hold up posters during presentations with her friend Mike, who was the tallest person at the school. She told him about her father, the only family she had left anymore because her mother died of illness when she was younger, and how he was kind of a hypochondriac as a result of her mother's death. The memory of her mother was slowly fading. She could barely remember what her mother looked like without the aid of photographs and she couldn't recall what her mother sounded like, how her smile sparkled not unlike hers, and had to rely on her father. She'd smile while she talked about her mother, but Levi saw the slight downturn at the corners of her mouth and knew she was sad.

Petra, in turn, knew everything there was to know about Frosts and she knew even more about Levi, even more than Hanji. She knew that he oftentimes stayed up at night to intricately design the different snowflakes to ensure that they were all indeed different. Petra couldn't laugh at him complaining about humans messing up the blankets of snow he put down every winter morning because they would screw up the landscape, making it all lumpy and turning it to a gray slush wherever they stepped. She told him that she liked the color of his snow-white hair and threaded her hand through his hair without warning and she commented on how soft and silky it was. ("The pink in your cheeks look nice as well, Levi," she teased when she saw him blush.) He had even showed him that special iron staff he used to call up particularly bad snowstorms. Her fingers traced the complicated patterns that were engraved in the staff. He had never let anyone touch it before, not even Hanji, who always reached for it because she wanted to see "how it works" even though Levi swung at her many times at the silver rod.

He was surprised to see that, despite her seemingly perpetual of illness, she still remained her cheery self. When he asked her if she was ever tired of being sick she shrugged. "Of course I am," she replied. "But being angry about it won't fix any of it so I just wait it out. And besides, I have you."

He couldn't tell if he felt so warm because her father had turned on the thermostat or if it was because she had once again slipped her hand into his.

 **XxXxX**

"Do you celebrate Christmas too?" she asked him. She was showing him a gift that one of her friends had dropped off before they went to school while she was sleeping. The silver necklace glittered and sparkled prettily in her hands. A snowflake dangled from the simple chain that hung from her fingers. Earlier he had laughed at Levi's embarrassed expression and assured him that he didn't need to give her a gift. Him being there was more than enough. "I mean, if you're real, then why shouldn't Santa be real?"

"We call him Nick," Levi said, reaching over to straighten out her discarded gift-wrap and fold it up into neat squares. "He's not that jolly of a guy, if you really want to know. He's kind of a grump."

She grinned. "Grumpier than you?" she giggled. Petra leaned over and snatched the folded up paper from his hands, their fingers brushing. "You need to stop with this neat freak thing. My dad lectured me the other day about being up and cleaning my room. He said there'd be enough time for me to organize my room when I was all better."

Levi leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. "Fine, don't thank me for making sure you're not living in a pigsty," he said, shrugging. "Anyway, I normally don't have time to celebrate. Christmas especially is a pretty big work day for me."

Petra scrunched her nose at him and, strangely enough, Levi found her to be incredibly adorable. "Boo," she said, tossing the gift-wrap at his head. "That's so boring!"

He caught it easily in his hand. "Hey, do you want a white Christmas or not?"

"You know what you should do?" Petra fell flat on her bed with a thud, her hair fanning around her face like a sunset halo.

"What?"

She rolled onto her side so she was facing him. "You should come visit me," she said. Her hand extended and covered his. "We can celebrate together. It won't be anything big, but it should be fun hanging out with a friend, right?"

He stared at the little hand on his and he turned his hand over so he could hold her hand. It was warm – no, it was hot like she was boiling – and he rubbed little circles onto her skin with his thumb. "I can't do Christmas Eve. Christmas, I think I can manage to put aside some time if you don't mind me coming very late."

She smiled down at his hand. "That'd be great," she replied. It was difficult for Levi to tell if the pink her cheeks was a blush or a feverish flush. He pushed the musing away from his mind, telling himself he was stupid for wondering.

They sat there for a while, hands touching. It was only after a while that Levi noticed Petra staring rather wistfully out of the window.

"I don't think I'll be able to go outside and see the snow this Christmas," she said a bit bitterly. She was sitting up now. She had let go of Levi's hand and was now hugging her knees tightly to her chest. "I was kind of hoping I could be better by now. My dad and I normally build a snowman every Christmas morning. It's a bit of a tradition I probably should have overgrown ages ago." Petra gave Levi a small, rueful smile.

"Well, being childish isn't all that bad," Levi said. _You wouldn't be able to see me if you grew up like everyone else did,_ he thought but he didn't say it out loud though. Petra seemed to be able to read his mind though because she smiled at him, a genuinely happy smile, and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah, it's not that bad," she echoed. "Do you think Santa could make sure I'm not sick by tomorrow morning?"

He was getting lost in her eyes again, those beautiful amber eyes, and he wondered if she would object to him running a hand through her golden hair again. He shook the thought out of his head. "I can't really make you get better," he said, clearing his throat, "but if you really want to see snow, I'm your guy." Levi swirled his hand around and his little flakes appeared just above his palm, his fingers frosted with ice.

"Oh, Levi," she breathed, her eyes widening. Her eyes seemed to glitter even more brightly than the lights that hung on her roof. "That would be amazing!"

"Not a lot, though," he said, holding up a finger.

She caught his finger in her hand and stuck her tongue out at him. "Come on, Levi. It's not like a little snow will hurt me. I can't get much worse, can I?"

He grumbled a bit but obliged. Eventually her entire room was covered in a small blanket of snow. They made la little snow village on her bed. Levi's creations were much more elaborate than Petra's. If one were to inspect his snow people they would be able to see each individual stitch on their clothing. He particularly liked writing words or drawing pictures in the sky, the delicate creations frozen in the air for a bit while Petra gazed in amazement.

"This was amazing," Petra said, cupping a handful of snow and scattering it in the air. She watched as Levi collected all of the snow into a large snowball and tossed the snow out of the window.

He wiped the snow off of his hands. "Yeah, it wasn't half bad," he admitted.

When he turned around she was right next to him. He wondered why he hadn't noticed her stumble up next to him before. "Hey, Levi," she said, putting a hand lightly on his arm.

"Yeah?"

She kissed his cheek sweetly, her soft lips hot against his cool skin. "Thanks," she said.

"No problem," he said, utterly stunned. He raised his fingers, hovering over the spot where she had previously pressed her lips against his cheek.

Petra smiled as he stumbled towards the window. "Are you still coming on Christmas?"

"Yeah, of course," he stuttered, nearly tripping over his own two feet as he hopped over her window and onto the roof. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

"See you then," she said, giggling at his still stunned expression.

 **XxXxX**

He stopped by her windowsill the night of Christmas. Surprisingly the window was left slightly open. Levi quietly opened it wider and slipped into the room. "You shouldn't leave your window open like that," he said, closing the window and brushing the snow off of his hair and clothing.

Petra set her book down and bounded towards him with energy he had never seen in her before. "It's fine!" she said brightly, taking his hand and pressing the back of it against her cheek. "I'm so much better now!I bet your snow has magical healing powers." She looked gleefully at him and waggled her fingers.

He felt the warmth of her cheek against his hand and noticed that she was no longer burning with fever. She looked healthy as well. Her cheeks were no longer a deathly white or a feverish red, instead replaced by a rosy pink. Her eyes were lit brightly, no longer that dull glassy amber that they were the previous times he had seen her. "I guess St. Nick really pulled through on that Christmas wish for you then," he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Yep!" she said happily. She plopped onto her bed, hugging her pillow to her chest. "My fever hasn't returned since yesterday morning! My dad is still a little worried about me going outside but he says we can make one tomorrow if I'm still feeling well."

"I guess Nick granted your Christmas wish then," Levi said. He had to admit, he even felt a bit happy about this despite not having ever taken part in Christmas before this year.

"To be honest, I think it was your snow," she whispered dramatically to him as if Old Nick would hear. "My fever went down so much after you visited that night. Magic snow."

"You're getting a little too into this whole magic thing now, aren't you?" Nonetheless, Levi smiled at her cheerfulness.

"You're just jealous that Santa granted my wish," she teased.

He rolled his eyes. "I could care less about getting any wish granted by that guy," Levi snorted. He ran a hand through his hair. "I'm glad you're better now though. Guess he's not that bad, old Nick. Now that you know that he's real, are you already planning what you're going to ask for next year?"

"Don't have to," she replied happily.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Well, I was wishing for that cute Frost to come into my room a couple of weeks ago," she said, eyeing him mischievously, "but you're here now."

Levi was speechless for a moment and he could feel his cheeks flush. "That's a good wish," he finally said.

"Yeah?" She reached out, threading her hand through his silky white hair.

"Yeah."

* * *

 _A/N: This is the last one I'm writing for this year. Don't worry though! I'm planning on writing more next year because I don't think I'm done writing Christmas drabbles for these two. Anyway, I think twenty-five is a good number to stop for a holiday fic collection. I hope you guys enjoyed the fics so far and that you come back next year :)_

 _On another note: Of course I would get sick Christmas day, hahaha. *uploads fic while crying because the pain is too much* But I hope all of you guys are having a lovely Christmas! Thanks for everything :)_


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